


Memory

by spindleofwords



Series: Your Family is the Most Important Thing, Boys [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst Sam Winchester, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spindleofwords/pseuds/spindleofwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was six months when Dean carried him out of his blazing nursery, but it takes about five years for memories to really keep a grip in his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory

He was six months when Dean carried him out of his blazing nursery, but it takes about five years for memories to really keep a grip in his mind.

He was six when Dean was teaching him not to cry when he scraped up his knee or hand, bandaging it with a worried voice and hurriedly wiping away tears with his little-kid hands that did too many things for a little kid.

He was nine when something came for him in the middle of the night, but all he can remember is waking up and feeling weak, so weak, and his dad's arms around him as Dean stood in the doorway. That particular time he doesnt remember what happened exactly but he remembers the week afterwards when Dean insisted he sleep in the bed with Sammy, age and size be damned, and he can remember Dean curling around him every night, clutching him tight with sobbing breaths when he thought his baby brother was sleeping.

He remembers being around ten when Dean caught him fooling around with one of John's guns that went off into the roof of the motel room (foolish and stupid with the safety off and bullets loaded into the shiny chamber that mesmerized him) and he particularly remembers the beating he took in exchange, that it was worth it to have Dean cradle him afterward in the bed they shared at the motel and apologize with a shaky voice and trembling hands because Dean was scared to death that the shot hadn't been plaster but bone.

He was thirteen when Dean first taught him how to throw a knife, and Sam can remember that the first one he threw landed nowhere near the target but buried itself pretty firmly in the wall behind him as he raised his arm to throw. The brunet could remember clearly his brother's laugh, loud and pealing like a bell, bright and so sincere that Sam couldn't even be mad, that when Dean grabbed him in a slight chokehold (and Sam couldn’t place when he had gotten as tall as Dean, maybe even a little taller as Dean reached /up/ for him in a way his brother had never had to do before) and nougied him with a crow of, "Well if there are any ghouls behind you they better watch for your bad ass, baby boy," Sam could only laugh back and grin goofily.

He was sixteen when he made his first kill, and he doesn't really remember the kill when it happened but he does remember his dad's hands patting his shoulder in congratulatory gesture, and remembers wanting to heave the contents of his roiling stomach because it wasn't like he hadn’t seen something die before but this was the first time he had stabbed a knife into a thing and watched the life drain out of its eyes. Sam also remembers Dean helping him into the Impala's backseat, and remembers Dean smoothing over his hair (brown soft hair that was getting long enough for Dean to tug on it and tease him about it daily) with warm hands and a warm understanding voice, still gruff, and maybe those hands weren't quite as big as Sam used to remember them being but he was okay with that as their dad drove them the long way to the motel on a bumpy back road and Dean put him back together again.

He definitely remembers being eighteen when Dean goes stony silent as he rips open an admission letter from Stanford and he can't even bring himself to be the least bit happy about his full ride because Dean was sitting on the bed, head hanging heavily and his shoulders slumped, the slope of them defeated even as his voice said, "Good for you, Sammy," and Sam can remember the way his own chest tightened at the forlorn sound of his big brother's voice and the straining tension in those not-so-big hands balled up in fists. Can remember going to sit beside Dean on the bed and Dean getting up, all hard lines and angry jawset as he stomped over to the bathroom and slammed the door home.  


Sam remembers being eighteen when Dean kneels over his bed and presses his lips to Sammy's temple gently, restlessly, and Sam remembers being almost asleep as Dean whispers in his ear and begged him not to go, not to leave.

Sammy remembers being eighteen and a half when he zips up his last suitcase when Dean opens the door without a word and grabs it off the bed, hauling it outside with a slight grunt and dragging it over to the back of the taxi. He can remember the bite of the sun on his scalp and the bite of Dean's eyes as they meet his own and he doesn't remember making the decision to but remembers hugging Dean close to him, thinks he can almost remember Dean's arm slung loose around the small of his back too.  


Sam doesn't really remember four years of undergrad that passed like a blur; only thing that really stands out is the way Dean stops calling in and stopping in to check on him maybe two and half years in. Still, Sam can see pretty clearly the day he decided to go for law school; can remember the aches and pains in his shoulders and his neck that Jessica rubbed out of them as he studied long and hard for tests.

He remembers being twenty two when he wakes up in the middle of the night, adrenaline racing through his blood as it pounds hard and fast in his ears, almost enough to drown out the barely-there intruder sounds coming from the front room but not quite, and Sam remembers coming in soft but not soft enough, can remember running through every bad thing that it could possibly be as what seemed like a human grappled with him, slamming him back down to the floor and knocking most of the breath out of him but leaving him with enough to exclaim Dean's name in surprise and then he can really remember the anger that courses through him and prompts him to flip the motherfucker on his ass before getting up. 

Sam doesn't quite remember what exactly happens to make him agree to something as reckless and stupid as another hunt with his brother, but he can remember how surprised he is at how good it feels to be doing something he knows again. Sometimes, in college, at Stanford, Sam felt almost like he was shoving too hard to be in some little box, and it scared him that this was the box he might fit in best, because it wasn't the one he wanted to fit in even if it did feel the best when Dean was laughing with him as they pulled the car out of the psycho bitch's creepy house.

Sam is twenty two when the feeling of his girlfriend's blood on his face breaks the high he comes home with, and as he tosses a gun into the back of the Impala he can remember the scream he hadn't realized had been ripped from his own soul just as he can remember Dean clapping him on the shoulder with a kind of closed off sympathy, and as he lays in the bed of the dingy motel room they've checked into for the night he can feel the mattress lilt at his back as his big brother says he's sorry in the slow way a warm steady hand strokes down his scalp and the slow way he breathes, a soft whisper that tells Sammy that Dean hadn't wished for this for him, that he was stupid for ever bringing Sam back into the game, and if Sam chooses to cling to that as his breath quiets from choking sobs to small pained whistles, well, Dean is almost all he can remember usually, anyways.


End file.
